Bridge Over the River Kwai
by Celaes Procyon
Summary: Arthur Kirkland finds himself imprisoned deep within enemy lines he is forced to make a choice: comply with Japanese wishes or refuse and face the consequences? But when he meets Alfred Jones, his choice may just be the one he wasn't expecting. USUK. AU


Hey guys, **Celaes** here! Gosh it's been forever since I've published something hasn't it? Terribly sorry for that, but I'm back now and this is a little something I came up with in World Geography class.

I know it isn't the best - it's a prologue for Pete's sake - but bear with me until we reach the actual storyline? I promise it gets better. On that same note, keep in mind that this has yet to see the watchful eye of a beta-reader so if there are spelling/grammar errors please forgive me! Oh - and tense changes! I'm horrid about those so I apologize in advance.

Well then, now that the boring stuff is out of the way let's cut to the chase.

This particular fanfiction takes place at the tail end of WWII with Arthur being the main POV. (There will be an odd chapter or two from Alfred's POV as well.) For most of the story our lovable American-English duo will be imprisoned in a little country called Burma on the River Kwai. No, they don't know each other when they meet, and no it isn't going to be one of those stories that revolves around blood and gore and all that crap...except for one chapter, but it _is_ WWII you know.

My fingers hurt now, so stay tuned for more details. ^^

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><p>I'd always thought there could be nothing worse than war. That having someone's life in your hands and having to take it away from them for the sake of your country, while noble enough, was the most terrible choice anyone would ever have to make. But then I joined the Royal Air Force and learned there was something worse, something more terrible than being on the ground with the Germans. It was the feeling that struck your heart as you dropped a bomb from your plane, the feeling that the screams you could just barely make out from thousands of feet below were your fault; not those bastards we were fighting, but your fault and yours alone. I thought it would never get worse than that, but of course it did.<p>

We'd been told to seek and destroy a compound just east of Indonesia's capital – there were Japanese soldiers there, they said. The details were sketchy and as a squadron leader, I was a little hesitant to accept the mission without receiving more information. The boys in my squad told me to "stop worrying like a mother hen, Kirkland, and just take the job!", that we'd "blow the Japs off the map before they even heard our engines!" They were so confident, so energetic, and so American – all too true to their homeland - that I believed them. We were approved for take-off a couple of hours later, so I kissed the honorary medal I always had with me for luck and led the boys down to the target location in a beat up B-26 Marauder.

The 'Georgiana', as it was christened, hadn't originally been mine but when my standard RAF bomber had gone down the week before, one of the incapacitated American troops had been forced to give it up. He wasn't pleased about it, mind you - the man had practically threatened my life, should I crash his beloved Georgiana. Nevertheless, it flew and I had a mission to head.

Our radios were abuzz with confident chatter as we swooped down on their location, so sure that we could take on an 'undefended' Japanese compound that none of us noticed the roofs of the bunkers peeling back to reveal German tanks. Within seconds, our planes were locked firmly within their scopes and there was nothing we could do to stop them, it was too late to turn around and too early to drop anything on the compound. We were screwed, and they blew us out of the air before we could say "God help us." The last thing I remember from March 8th, 1942, was my right wing being blown off and my plane going into a death spiral as the ground began rushing up to meet me. Panic gripped my throat and I glanced up to read the ejection instructions, following the first step by pulling the release lever and popping the top off the cockpit. The only problem was the instructions _**were printed on the top**_. I remember cursing enough to make my mother roll over in her grave and hastily pressing a bright red button, hoping for the best.

And then I was airborne.

I remember the shrill noise the air made as it whistled past my ears as I fell fifty feet and my entire body protesting as it jerked helplessly beneath the strength of gravity when my parachute deployed. As the billowing cloth brought my plummeting journey to a sudden stop, the straps dug into my skin and I fought to catch my breath in the frigid air. I thought I was going to die – if not by the damn tanks, then by one of my boys' planes running me through on the way to the ground. I looked down to try and figure out where I was, and saw a sight that chilled me to the very bone. Every single one of my squadron's planes had crashed on the sparse land below and was burning with a fire so bright, it hurt to look. A few of them had bravely taken out a bunker or two on their way down, but not a single one was spared their fiery fate. I remember thinking that surely my squad would have known to eject, to get the hell out of those death traps as they plummeted down to that god forsaken compound and started to crane my head around, looking for other parachutes nearby. And then the worst part hit me, the part that was far worse than dropping any bomb or killing any soldier:

There wasn't a single parachute as far as I could see.

Bile rose in my throat and I had started to thrash around in my equipment, trying to turn around and find that one pilot that I'd missed. But there wasn't one. I was all alone. I remember descending onto a cluster of leafy green trees on the edge of a forest and feeling a stabbing pain in my legs as the spiny branches bashed against them, the twigs scraping relentlessly against my face and snagging my hair, seeing the enormous branch heading right for me and feeling a sharp pain as it collided with my forehead, then nothing. Nothing, but an endless blackness and the creeping feeling of time as it passed by.

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><p>I hope that wasn't too terrible boys and girls!<p>

So now you know what happened to our beloved Arthur two weeks before he was taken into Burma. Immediatley after he was taken captive he was imprisoned in Indonesia, but you'll learn about that in Chapter One.

*RAF bomber* - Royal Air Force fighter plane that specialized in heavier weaponry.  
>*Squadron leader* - The plane that flies in front of the formation to lead the way. (Sort of like the cpatian of a ship.)<br>*B-26 Marauder* - fighting plane developed in the later part of air-warfare during WWII. Replacement for the older prototypes.

That's all for now...


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